Google Books

Today, Google updated its ereading app, Google Play Books, with a handful of new big features. The app now comes with Google Maps integration, translation support, and some advanced annotation tools. If you've been thinking about giving Google's ereading app a try, there's no better time to do so than now.

Google's been hard at work getting their Play Store content to more and more locations around the world. While this isn't as easy as it sounds today they've announced one more to receive the gift of books. Google's Play Store (Android Market) Books are now available for those in France as they continue their rollout to European markets.

Google's Android Market, now known as the Play Store doesn't offer all of its services across the globe. While many have been waiting for movies and music in other parts of the world, we've had it stateside all along. Today however Google has just added Germany to their list and are now offering Google Books to the country. This is a small update, but one of many we've seen recently.

Google just pushed out a trio of updates for Android today. Bringing new features and improvements to the wildly popular Gmail, Google Play Books (not sure how you "play" books), as well as added more feature to Street View for Google Maps. One major improvement is they've brought all the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features in Gmail to Honeycomb tablets.

One of the more frustrating aspects of Android for non-US users is that a lot of the content on the Google Play Store (formerly the Android Market) isn't available in other countries. Certain apps and usually all of Google Music, Movies and Books aren't available in all territories. Users have been voicing their complaints at the Google Play Google+ page, and Google has responded. Essentially, they're trying as hard as they can, but the intricacies of international content licensing are not for the faint of heart.

More than a few have been somewhat confused by Google's Android and media rebranding efforts around the Google Play name. But it looks like it's here to stay, and if an Audiobooks portal spotted by Google Operating System is any indication, they're looking to expand. Of course audiobooks are a natural extension of both Google Book and Google Music (now Google Play Books and Google Play Music - see how that works?) but they may also be looking into magazines, catalogs, newspapers and other periodicals.